Techmeme
June 23, 2015, 1:55 PM

Top News

Aviva Rutkin / New Scientist:
Experimental Facebook face-recogniton software can discern identity with 83% accuracy even when faces are hidden  —  Facebook can recognise you in photos even if you're not looking  —  Thanks to the latest advances in computer vision, we now have machines that can pick you out of a line-up.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Alibaba folds its US-based Amazon competitor 11 Main, other US holdings into OpenSky  —  Alibaba Rethinks Its US E-Commerce Strategy, Folds 11 Main, Other U.S. Holdings Into OpenSky  —  China's e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba has been clear about its ambitions to grow its presence in the U.S. …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Verizon Completes Its Acquisition of AOL For $4.4B  —  Well, that was fast: Verizon has just announced that it has completed its acquisition of AOL, owner of TechCrunch, purchasing all outstanding shares for $50 per share in cash for a total price of $4.4 billion.  The sale was originally announced just over a month ago.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Credit Karma Has Raised $175M On A Valuation Of $3.5B, As It Looks To An IPO In The Next 1-2 Years  —  The rush of funding for fintech startups continues.  TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that Credit Karma — a platform that provides credit scores to users but also serves as a portal …
More: Fortune and VentureBeat
Jens Hansegard / Wall Street Journal:
Tidal loses interim CEO after less than three months in the job, its second since launch  —  Boss of Jay Z's Music-Streaming Service Tidal Quits  —  Tidal faces industry criticism of premium business model as competition mounts  —  STOCKHOLM—At Tidal, Peter Tonstad failed to beat the rap.
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Dropbox for Android gets Material Design, ability to take photos in folders, easier searching and sharing  —  Dropbox today released a major new version of its Android app.  You can download the new Dropbox 3.0 from Google Play (if you don't see it yet, don't worry: the company says it's rolling out “over the next few days").
Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:
Big Data Startup Snowflake Raises $45 Million, Launches First Product  —  Snowflake, a big data startup led by longtime Microsoft executive Bob Muglia, has landed a $45 million funding round led by Altimeter Capital and announced the general availability of its product for analyzing business data in the cloud.
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Amazon Echo is now open for preorders to anyone in the U.S. for $180, ships July 14  —  Got email marketing?  We've got best practices from LivingSocial and estate sale guru Everything But The House in our next Insight webinar.  —  Amazon has announced that its voice-activated “Echo” …
Ian Austen / New York Times:
BlackBerry Q1: misses expectations with an adjusted loss of $28M on $658M revenue, 1.1M devices sold  —  With Phones Lagging, BlackBerry Reports $28 Million Loss  —  OTTAWA — BlackBerry's introduction of two phones aimed at its traditional base of corporate users failed to reverse …
Alexander Martin / Wall Street Journal:
SoftBank sells entire stock of 1,000 humanoid Pepper robots within a minute of it going on sale, company expects to produce 1,000/month  —  SoftBank Robot Pepper Sells Out in a Minute  —  There was no problem finding a home for the first batch of humanoid robots known as Pepper.
Peter Bright / Ars Technica:

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Vikram Dodd / Guardian: